The Nineteenth Byte

Sp3000

2:00 PM

@NewMetaPosts "(which could act as a dupe target for the old one)." <-- hah

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 I'm not sure why this isn't common practice with old/bad challenges for interesting tasks already.

Geobits

Meh. If it gets reopened, it's still a "full program" golf. I can do 58 with a function, or exactly double that at 116 for a full program.

Martin Büttner

@Geobits I'm happy to reopen and close it as a dupe :P

There isn't really anything interesting to golf beyond x&2*x which almost all answers on the other challenge use.

Geobits

Sure, I know. I'm just bored and looking for an easy golf this morning is all :P

Martin Büttner

the dupe target doesn't have a Java answer yet ;)

Sp3000

2:03 PM

I like the relative completeness snippet idea, but it sounds like Martin's always putting in so much work behind the scenes :P

Martin Büttner

By "so much work" you mean writing up the markdown for that question and the two answers? ;)

Sp3000

I mean your other leaderboard snippet, to name 1 thing

Geobits

@MartinBüttner But then I have to add a loop or recursion. Way too much work, considering I've lost interest already ;)

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 How is that leaderboard behind the scenes? :D

anyway, I'm happy for someone else to write the catalogue catalogue snippet ;)

Anonymous

So, shall we have a proper 99 Bottles golf?

Sp3000

2:08 PM

I propose not using bottles or beer :P

Martin Büttner

@Mego It would be nice to alternate between maths and strings a bit.

Geobits

@Sp3000 I guess we could do vials of crack instead, but that doesn't seem any better...

Martin Büttner

@ChrisJester-Young Would you be happy with some heavy editing to your Fibonacci challenge to make it a proper catalogue? I'd make sure not to change the actual spec (still allow both a stream and getting a specific number), but add in some more details, a leaderboard and fix up all the answer headers that need fixing.

Sp3000

We could always do the 99 bugs in the code version

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 The benefit of making it "99 bottles of beer" is searchability though.

Sp3000

2:15 PM

Ah true... I guess if gs2 wants its way, then it shall get it :P

Martin Büttner

And HQ9+

Sp3000

I forgot that thing existed :/

Martin Büttner

I was wondering if it would be better to replace meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/7226/8478 with a separate question in the vein of meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/3578/8478

Sp3000

I forgot that thing existed too :/

Martin Büttner

:D

Geobits

2:21 PM

And thus, the Fortnightly Catalogs were born.

Sp3000

Separate question might encourage contribution, but then it might just feel like the usual sandbox, spread out

quartata

Ooh, is my PBASIC answer safe?

Geobits

I think actually planning and/or scheduling these things is a pretty good way to kill interest in them.

Sp3000

Lessons about PPCG, #573: People will write code for you for free, but give them a deadline and they'll refuse to do anything

quartata

Oh, not quite eh

Sp3000

2:23 PM

... or at least that's how those things died

quartata

Wow, some of the "random number" ones were actually quite interesting

Geobits

@Sp3000 I'll never have to convert tiles into hexagons in GIMP again, that's for sure ;)

Sp3000

Heh. Nice one.

Martin Büttner

@Geobits That's sort of true, but I was compiling that list anyway, and it didn't seem fair to keep it to myself. ;)

Anonymous

Why aren't my python list slices working

Anonymous

2:37 PM

It makes me sad

Sp3000

What's wrong?

Anonymous

So I have a list like [1,2,3,4,5]

Anonymous

Let's call it L

Anonymous

And I'm doing L[2:4]='ab'

Anonymous

And it's giving me [1,ab,3,4,5] rather than [1,a,b,4,5]

Anonymous

2:40 PM

Err

Anonymous

Giving me [1,2,a,4,5]

Anonymous

But when I try it in REPL it works fine

Sp3000

I'm getting [1, 2, 'a', 'b', 5] actually, which is what I'd expect...

Anonymous

(not my actual code, I'm simplifying it for this)

Anonymous

Err yeah that

Anonymous

2:41 PM

I can't type, haven't had my coffee today

Anonymous

Oh duh

Anonymous

In my code I had an off-by-one error in the slice

Anonymous

And I was also assigning the string wrong :P

Sp3000

:P

Anonymous

Now I just need to golf this

Anonymous

2:48 PM

There, overwrite answered in python

Sp3000

You can move line 4 to the end of line 3

Anonymous

herpaderp

Anonymous

I seriously need to get some coffee

Martin Büttner

The cup stacks might make a nice Random Golf of the Day instalment. Although I don't really want to do another ASCII art instalment (poor Geobits), so I'd have to figure out some sort of list representation.

Calvin's Hobbies

@Rainbolt Well they aren't definitely brothers

aditsu

3:03 PM

I updated my sandboxed challenge, looking for feedback

4

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Play a RTTTL song User quartata posted this question, but he neglected the fact that, for whatever reason, he's not able to play MIDI files on his computer. Let's help him out by writing a full program that reads a song in RTTTL format from the standard input, prints the song name to the standa...

Geobits

@MartinBüttner What would the goal be for a RGotD? Vomit a random string of AAARAARs and display it?

Martin Büttner

generate a random stack of cups of given base width (with not cups floating in the air)

a bit like this: goo.gl/mNcjZe

Geobits

Ah. I assume any of them needs to be possible, up to a full triangle?

Calvin's Hobbies

Why not given a number of cups?

Martin Büttner

this is similar to one of the ideas I had in the sandbox post actually (generate a correctly balanced string)

@Calvin'sHobbies that sounds more interesting

@Geobits yes, maybe even uniformly, although that's much harder.

@Calvin'sHobbies I think in that case you'd need to specify that there must not be any gaps on the ground though

Calvin's Hobbies

3:06 PM

Right

Sp3000

Alternatively, input is base width and number of cups

(also I forgot about Random Golf of the ~~Day~~ Month +- More Months)

Martin Büttner

what did you not forget about? :P

Geobits

Not his fault. He forgot that he forgot those things.

Anonymous

I can't remember what I've forgotten - Sp3000

Sp3000

Oi, no out of context quotes please :P

Martin Büttner

3:09 PM

That's why I'm asking what he didn't forget :P

Sp3000

I remember all the awesome CnRs you made. Now go make more. Chop chop

Just not quizzes

Calvin's Hobbies

@MartinBüttner should've used real ☕'s (why is there not a black frowny face?)

Sp3000

(Also I didn't forget about this, but at this rate I will forget my regex for #43)

Rainbolt

@Calvin'sHobbies That's true

aditsu

@Calvin'sHobbies black people are always happy because there's no more racism :p

Geobits

3:14 PM

Oh, is racism done now? I keep hearing that, but never believed it. If aditsu says it's true, though...

aditsu

well, Faux news says so, it must be true

Rainbolt

There are so many questions on SO lately about queues and nodes

Calvin's Hobbies

@aditsu ☻☺

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 @Geobits @Calvin'sHobbies found the relevant OEIS: oeis.org/A005169

Anonymous

@Rainbolt university data structures classes probably just got to queues

Rainbolt

3:16 PM

@Geobits I was immediately reminded of the many MTG games where a player says "Crack Aether Vial?"

Sp3000

It's so late in the year - if they're only up to queues now, what have they been doing this whole time?

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 In this country, lectures started last week.

(And in the UK three weeks ago.)

Sp3000

Oh, ok. I knew some countries started at different times, but I didn't think so late

Calvin's Hobbies

@ಠ_ಠ Golfed face: ⛣

Rainbolt

@Sp3000 cs.jhu.edu/~hajic/courses/cs226/syllabus.html

Geobits

3:19 PM

Queues are pretty far along. You have to do all of A-Ps first.

Rainbolt

Gotta learn about Big O first

What's A-P?

Martin Büttner

...

Geobits

A through P

Alphabetical order, before Q

Rainbolt

Okay okay I'm stupid. Thanks guys

Anonymous

@Sp3000 Linked lists

Geobits

3:21 PM

Yep, that's an L, so would come before Queues.

Rainbolt

I read A-P and in my head I read "acyclic.... something?"

aditsu

Stoned on Sesame Street

►

Geobits

Acyclic periods :D

Calvin's Hobbies

Arrays, Big oh, Compiling, Debugging, Exceptions, ...

3

Anonymous

Functions

Anonymous

3:23 PM

I can markdown reel gud

Rainbolt

We asked our customer for some requirements and he made it his top priority to get them to us so that we could start work on that feature. Then, we decided that this other thing needed to happen first, and now I'm in trouble again for accidentally communicating that his feature wasn't our top priority.

Calvin's Hobbies

Z...?

Anonymous

Tbh if we're doing the alphabet of compsci, A should be Alcohol

Martin Büttner

@Calvin'sHobbies Boolean Logic seems more appropriate at that stage.

Rainbolt

I should just stop writing emails. It's starting to get to me. I don't mind being in trouble occasionally but when it happens all the time...

Anonymous

3:24 PM

@Calvin'sHobbies Z-combinators

Anonymous

Appropriately after Lambda calculus

Geobits

Don't know your exact position, but if it keeps happening, try something like "Ok, let me get this to the team (or whoever) and we'll move forward from there".

Rainbolt

J is Java. I'm claiming it before some cool kid claims it for that other J language.

Anonymous

Kill -9

Anonymous

Perfect for right after Java

Geobits

3:26 PM

If J is for Java, it should mean coffee instead of the language. Try to keep it agnostic :P

Anonymous

Haskell, Interpreters

Calvin's Hobbies

I agree. More general, not language based

Anonymous

Well then you get to think of another H

Martin Büttner

Heap Sort

Sp3000

Help.

Calvin's Hobbies

3:28 PM

Xylophone simulators (?)

I definitely wish we had simulated a xylophone in some compsci class

Geobits

Lists, Modeling, Natural Language Processing, Optimization, Procedural Languages, Queues, Recursion, Recursion, Recursion

Rainbolt

TIL: There is a Java community in Coffee County, Alabama.

Named after General John Coffee, who is not the same guy as the one from The Green Mile.

Geobits

Also near Dothan, which is a total pain in the ass to drive through.

Anonymous

Not the same guy?

Martin Büttner

@Calvin'sHobbies I like how the first word with X anyone can ever think of is "Xylophone"

Anonymous

3:32 PM

I haven't been disappointed this much since Java 5

Calvin's Hobbies

@MartinBüttner I also considered Xray and Xavier

Rainbolt

I need to go back and watch the first half of the Green Mile

I don't think I've ever seen the last half. Like Fight Night, I can't make it all the way through.

Geobits

It's a good movie, but pretty damn slow in parts. The book had better pacing IMO.

Rainbolt

Which one (Fight Night or The Green Mile)?

Geobits

The Green Mile. I haven't seen Fight Night, so dunno about that one.

aditsu

3:37 PM

it's so sad that Michael Clarke Duncan died, he was a great guy and actor

Geobits

I don't know what he was actually like off camera, but I imagine he was a big teddy bear from the roles he got.

Rainbolt

I get the same vibe

Michael Clark Duncan died in 2012. He then proceeded to star in The Challenger in 2015.

aditsu

o_O

Calvin's Hobbies

@Geobits O is kinda broad there

Sp3000

Operating Systems

Calvin's Hobbies

3:42 PM

Oop

Ah shoot, he heard

(i.e. Optimizer just entered as we disparage his name)

Sp3000

X+Y sorting?

Geobits

@Calvin'sHobbies Not much broader than Debugging ;)

Rainbolt

@Calvin'sHobbies Oop - Singular form of oops. Used to express mild dismay or disappointment exactly once.

Sp3000

D can be databases :P

Geobits

If found in a narrow open area between buildings, Oop is also a basketball term (or an old comic strip I guess).

Rainbolt

3:50 PM

J/k I can delete my dumbness and keep talking.

Geobits

That's the spirit :P

Calvin's Hobbies

@Sp3000 Xerox could've had it all

Sp3000

Do mods still see the dumbness

Geobits

Yes. They see all the dumbness.

Sp3000

Xerox isn't computer science though :P

Geobits

3:51 PM

Xerox is magic.

Calvin's Hobbies

It's computer science history

Geobits

Xylophone sort: Construct a xylophone with bars for each item corresponding to a length. Play each bar and swap them if the tones are not in order. Repeat until sorted.

It's a bit of work, but then you have a xylophone when you're done.

Calvin's Hobbies

A musical bubble sort

Anonymous

I prefer piccolo sort

Anonymous

def PicolloSort(iter):return iter[0]

Martin Büttner

3:59 PM

@Geobits I should make a website like sorting-algorithms.com which plays a corresponding xylophone note each time a value moves.

Geobits

Make sure you don't include any warning that it's going to play a sound, though. Unexpected random noise is the best random noise.

Martin Büttner

:)

Calvin's Hobbies

Time to make Geobits a random ping chatbot

Geobits

No problem. I have headphones plugged in and not on my ears most of the time here :D

It might drive my dog crazy at home, though.

Calvin's Hobbies

I forget, is there a way to ping yourself with the noise?

@Calvin test

@Calvin'sHobbies test

Rainbolt

4:12 PM

Right before it finishes the random musical sort, do the classic scary scream prank. "bing bong boop boop bing bing bong boop ASKDJSAFDKSJDFSAK:DJFSADFG:KAJFD"

Calvin's Hobbies

@Calvin'sHobbies Yes!

Rainbolt

No need to star both of those....

aditsu

Calvin's Hobbies

People will star anything

Rainbolt

Fixed.

Geobits

4:14 PM

Anything except this, amirite?

Anonymous

@Calvin'sHobbies The temptation is strong

Calvin's Hobbies

Alex will star anything

Anonymous

anything

Geobits

And by extension, so will his sock.

Rainbolt

@Geobits That message is causing me so much discomfort right now.

Geobits

4:15 PM

I'm glad it worked, then :)

Rainbolt

Like when two people play the knock game, and the second guy doesn't knock back.

Anonymous

itwasntme

Mauris

{*a}<={*b} <-- this is a new Python 3.5 golf tech I just found, but it looks like Ruby/Perl golf!

Rainbolt

Person 1: dun-dundundun-dun...
Person 2: .............................

Geobits

dun-dundun-dun-dun :P

Rainbolt

4:17 PM

Nah, the middle three definitely follow the same tempo for all three.

Anonymous

@Mauris Is that improper subset testing?

Geobits

Oh, no I was replying, just with the wrong thing. I didn't mean for it to be so close to the original :(

Mauris

Absolutely, Mego! But <= works in Python 2; that's not the new part

Geobits

Messing up the rhythm is better than silence IMO.

Mauris

{*a} is like set(a) but shorter.

Rainbolt

4:18 PM

Literally the only thing I learned in psychology is cognitive dissonance and that the knock knock game causes it.

He skipped over the chapter about sex

Anonymous

Yeah I knew about the new set declaration syntax

Rainbolt

After that I decided his entire class was a joke

Geobits

A knock knock joke?

aditsu

wth is the knock knock game?

Geobits

Basically this

Rainbolt

4:20 PM

One person goes KNOCK (pause) KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK (pause) KNOCK. Then the person on the other side of the door is supposed to KNOCK (pause) KNOCK back.

That's the secret code

Geobits

Except it's so often done that it isn't a good secret code for anything at all (now).

aditsu

huh, ok

Mauris

♩ ♫♩ ♩

Geobits

> The former prisoner of war and U.S. Naval Seaman Doug Hegdahl reports fellow American captives in the Vietnam war would authenticate a new prisoner's American identity by tapping the first five notes of "Shave and a Haircut", against a cell wall, waiting for the appropriate response. American POWs were then able to communicate securely with one another via the quadratic alphabet code.

Anonymous

Shave and a Haircut

►

Geobits

4:23 PM

Good ol' Roger Rabbit

Rainbolt

Why is SSMS's interface so far behind Visual Studio? Every time something fails, the error message says "It failed. Check the event log."

The event log just says "You need to turn on SQL Server Agent, dummy."

Meanwhile, Visual Studio says "Would you like me to import all of the references for this code that you just copied and pasted like a maniac?

New Main Posts

0

Q: Print a cube's vertices and it's covering triangles

Output coordinates of the vertices of a cube. Then, output a list of 12 triangles that will cover the cube, each triangle being a list of three vertex-indexes, consistently oriented. Output must be an ASCII string of distinct decimal numbers. This golf has no input. Winner is the fewest character...

quartata

I was so happy that people seemed to be taking interest in RTTTL obfuscation and upvoting it

Then suddenly 3 downvotes

Anonymous

I tried to do the RTTTL obfuscation challenge, but I couldn't come up with any clever tricks to hide a program in it

Anonymous

Other than the ones already used, like whitespace

quartata

4:36 PM

I think people just really hate pop-con.

Geobits

They probably came "suddenly" when it got a bit more attention from being sandbox-linked: meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/7209/14215

quartata

So grand total of 6 downvotes on that question. RTTTL Obfuscation would be my second most upvoted challenge if not for that

Geobits

However, I will say i was a bit put off by "This is popularity-contest, so I recommend you make your song pretty."

Which implies they should be voted based on the song choice, not the cleverness of obfuscating it.

quartata

@Geobits Ah I see. That was kind of a joke...

Geobits

I kinda figured it was at least half-a-joke, but since there's no other judging criteria listed or anything, and popcons do tend to get voted that way...

quartata

4:39 PM

Took it out.

Rainbolt

@quartata It only has 3 downvotes

quartata

@Rainbolt That's strange. Someone must have taken their downvote and turned it into an upvote

Calvin's Hobbies

@Rainbolt I was about to say that >:(

quartata

It had 2 downvotes when I first posted it and it got some more (I don't know how many) when I posted the bounty

That makes me feel a little better

Calvin's Hobbies

@quartata Or just undownvoted

Geobits

4:41 PM

What makes you say it had -6 at any point? The most I've seen on it is -3, for the record.

aditsu

@quartata any comments on my updated sandboxed challenge?

Anonymous

I just realized I forgot to upvote that question. Fixed.

quartata

@Geobits I can't see votes yet. So I just did it by the amount of bad red text I've seen in my rep tab

@aditsu Lemme take a look

Geobits

Ah, gotcha.

quartata

When do you get to see votes?

Anonymous

4:42 PM

It's got +17/-3 right now

Anonymous

750

Rainbolt

@quartata codegolf.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/established-user

Calvin's Hobbies

quart has 878

quartata

Wait what?

Rainbolt

I am surprised that didn't get one-boxed...

quartata

4:43 PM

Oh. I didn't know you had to actually CLICK on the score

Geobits

Click the vote count :D

quartata

I'm stupid

Calvin's Hobbies

codegolf.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/established-user

@Rainbolt Me too

Geobits

Nah, it's not very obvious if you don't read the "congrats you got a shiny new privilege" thing.

Rainbolt

I don't think you're stupid. Enough people have apparently had the same problem that they had to make this:

Calvin's Hobbies

4:44 PM

What site is that arrow button design from?

Geobits

That hand is clicking the wrong thing. Need to move it down some ;)

quartata

@Calvin'sHobbies That's what a downvote looks like to the downvoter.

Geobits

Man, I really can't type today.

Anonymous

Looks like arcade

Geobits

@Calvin'sHobbies Looks like Arqade meta maybe?

Anonymous

4:45 PM

Arqade*

Calvin's Hobbies

@quartata Huh?

quartata

It looks just like a normal downvote button to me...

@Calvin'sHobbies It's the downvote button when it has been selected.

Rainbolt

Confirmed: gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/240236/…

Compare to: stackoverflow.com/questions/33219559/…

Calvin's Hobbies

@quartata Look at geobits and look at the image. They are clearly different.

Rainbolt

And then all beta sites are just this: codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/60147/rtttl-obfuscation

quartata

4:46 PM

Hey don't use ME as an example!

Geobits

He used me as an example :P

Rainbolt

You just called out your own challenge. I figured I should pile on more attention while you are asking for it.

Calvin's Hobbies

What would our vote buttons look like?

quartata

It was more of a "complain about downvotes" thing than a "give me free rep please" thing

Geobits

Probably something overly golf-related :(

quartata

4:48 PM

@Calvin'sHobbies Hmm

aditsu

they should be plain v and ^

quartata

How about up and down golf tees?

Rainbolt

@Calvin'sHobbies They might look like this if Geobits has his way:

3

Anonymous

lololol

Geobits

> Probably something overly golf-related :(

Calvin's Hobbies

4:49 PM

@aditsu For our fish enthusiasts

quartata

@Geobits Just sayin...

Geobits

@Rainbolt That's a proposal I can agree with :D

quartata

@Calvin'sHobbies !^

Also *><>

I'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a typo

Anonymous

No we need + and -, for the best golfing language ever

2

Calvin's Hobbies

@quartata My finger slipped

Geobits

4:51 PM

+ and - is a really good idea.

Anonymous

Wait I was kidding

aditsu

@quartata *ghoti

Geobits

Too late. Your joke has been accepted.

Anonymous

Brainfuck is a terrible golfing language

Anonymous

what have i done

Calvin's Hobbies

4:52 PM

With ^ and v our favorite button could be *

Geobits

Terrible for golf, sure, but either way, I've seen more BF at this site than any other.

Anonymous

Mostly because of BF-related challenges

aditsu

) and (, hehe

Anonymous

Favorite should be .

Geobits

Plus and minus have basically the same meaning in tons of languages anyway.

Rainbolt

4:52 PM

The problem with + and - is that when you expand the vote count it becomes + + - - which is ugly

quartata

15

A: Cat-like program in fewer than 100 bytes of code

ΒrainFuck (5 bytes) ,[.,] Explanation: , Read first byte of input and place on stack [ While top byte is not 0... . Print top byte from stack as ASCII and remove , Read next byte of input and place on stack ] ...loop

Anonymous

@quartata Ok you win

Calvin's Hobbies

@Rainbolt It's a mime blinking

quartata

B)

Anonymous

That and infinite loops are the only things BF can probably do shorter than other langs

Anonymous

4:53 PM

Hard to beat two bytes, []

aditsu

@quartata that's not at all like a cat :p

Calvin's Hobbies

@Mego Befunge 0

quartata

@Mego 3

+[]

Anonymous

Oh yeah need that +

Anonymous

0-byte programs don't count

Geobits

4:54 PM

-[] would work too, right?

Anonymous

They're a standard loophole :P

Anonymous

Yep, so long as it's not 0 in the first cell

Anonymous

By the original spec that would make it 255

quartata

You know @VTCAKAVSMoACE if you took ShadyAsFuck and added support for three-byte and four-byte instructions in one it would probably be pretty good for golfing

Geobits

I prefer -[] then :)

quartata

4:55 PM

Call it GolfFuck

@Mego My most upvoted answer is a 0-byte sed answer. I feel bad now

Geobits

@quartata You can only get so many combinations in a single byte.

Anonymous

29

A: Loopholes that are forbidden by default

Zero-length answers Considering an empty program a quine was original in the 1994 IOCCC. Over two decades later, if you can answer a question with an empty program and that question is scored by length (e.g., code-golf) and is tagged as quine, source-layout or restricted-source, just notify th...